


At Last I See The Light

by bideru



Series: Tales from Silvermoon [7]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, I do my research, Love Story, a surprising amount of death, every name here comes from an actual character in-game, get the tissues, hoo boy buckle up, kael's acute case of party boy was inherited, minor Scourge trauma, shadowlands will probably invalidate half of this, the brief but strong bromance between rich boys, y'all i sobbed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27160354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: Lord and Lady Bloodsworn's greatest gift to their son was their love story, and years later, Astalor writes his own.(This is a side story toEnough: Short Story Long, and might not make sense if you haven't read it, because it concerns the subplot of Astalor's relationship with Rommath's sister.)
Relationships: Astalor Bloodsworn's mother/Astalor Bloodsworn's father, Astalor Bloodsworn/OC
Series: Tales from Silvermoon [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747684
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	At Last I See The Light

When Astalor Bloodsworn was a little boy, he had spent an inordinate amount of time with his nose buried in a book. When the choice was between that or dealing with Prince Kael’thas (whose family Astalor’s had been bound to since before the time of Dath’Remar), it was easy to slip into his father’s library and pull tome after tome from the shelves and lose himself for a few hours, until Kael inevitably found him and dragged him out to go riding or play fethesi or whatever else it was that Kael was in the mood for. He had read all the classics, beautiful Darnassian epics from Old Kalimdor and the poetry of Peroth’arn and Thaedris Feathersong and the sonnets to Queen Azshara. He’d read through his father’s vast collection of stories from Lordaeron, tales of great battles and troll wars, old human legends; and even the mysterious book of dragon fables from the Great Library of Silvermoon. But Astalor’s favorite story, the one he asked for over and over, was that of his parents’, and how they fell in love. 

His mother would pull him into her lap, smooth the hair from his face, and plant a kiss to the tip of his nose. She would always start with the preface that Astalor’s father was the lone heir to the Bloodsworn fortune, that he had no brothers or even sisters, that his uncles were old and most were dead. And as such, Astalor’s father had occupied a very important position within the family, and within the court of Silvermoon at large. The Bloodsworns were wealthy and powerful, his mother would tell him, and they had the king’s ear. Every nobleman worth his salt was clamoring to marry their daughter to his father. 

“Your father,” his mother would tell him, “did not want to be a pawn in political games. He did not want a wife who only wanted the Bloodsworn name. Your father wanted to marry for love.” 

A ridiculous dream, his grandfather had said (and here Astalor’s mother made sure to impart that his grandparents were not bad people, were merely products of their time and were trying, in their own way, to assure their son’s happiness). Even the king, his close friend and confidante, suggested he was better off marrying a woman of good breeding, carefully selected by his parents. Astalor’s father refused. 

“Father didn’t like the noblewomen,” Astalor would press, eager to get to the best part of the story. “He didn’t even like Princess Liara.” And his eyes would widen as he said it, as if the rejection of a Sunstrider princess were unthinkable ﹣ and to many people, it had been. 

“He thought they were stuffy and too concerned with status,” his mother would say. “Astalor, you must understand how terribly important this family is. Many of the women who claimed to want to marry your father had never even met him, or even knew his name.”

“You didn’t know his name!” little Astalor would laugh, and his mother would smile.

“Not at first,” she agreed. “I had no idea who he was at all.” 

Astalor’s father was a spellblade, as were the Bloodsworn men who’d come before. He had studied with the Dawnblades who protected the Warden of the Sunwell on Quel’Danas, and he had spent time in Dalaran, learning to spellbreak and create wards. Few were as skilled in magical manipulation as Valanar Bloodsworn. 

“I met your father at a party,” his mother would begin, and Astalor would listen with rapt attention, little fists balled in his lap and eyes wide with wonder.

* * *

_Valanar Bloodsworn was a tall, handsome elf of some eighteen hundred years. He kept a closed circle of friends, including King Anasterian, the future Grand Magister Belo’vir Salonar, and the High Priest Vandellor, and while he was always polite, always cordial, he was often times private to the point of coldness to those who pried. He had grown up with these men, and their friendship was not based on the furthering of statuses or hoarding of wealth. When one was as important as Valanar Bloodsworn, one had to be careful of those who merely sought to use their connections to reach the king._

_Anasterian was a great believer in parties, in his youth, and the Convocation could not argue overmuch, as Anasterian invited lesser nobles and guild heads and foreign dignitaries, and often spent much of the occasion in deep discussion with each of them. It was imperative, therefore, to invite the king to any and all occasions, hope to catch his ear, the promise of a future meeting and concrete action._

_This party was hosted by the Tailors’ Guild, and was in fact Anasterian’s favorite sort of party: A masquerade. Although the point of the affair was to push the guild’s agenda, and that meant he could not be too terribly anonymous, he had commissioned a great phoenix costume for the occasion, with real feathers for the wings and a golden, beaked mask. His friends, however, Valanar and Belo’vir and Vandellor, delighted in the opportunity to meander unmolested through the crowd, their arms not caught by people seeking “just a word” with the king’s closest friends and advisors. Belo’vir, the show off, had constructed a costume all on his own using silks made from pure mana, a pricey commission from the guild that made him their favorite for the night. Vandellor, a man of more simple tastes, wore cloth-of-arcane and a pearl-studded mask, beaded around the eyes, and Valanar, of similar mind, wore the same, in contrasting colors and a soft mask embroidered with glowing spellthread. No one paid him any mind, what with the phoenix king and the noble wealthy enough to don manasilk, and he enjoyed himself, free from the constant flurry of people who only wanted something from him. He was sure the other guests thought he was a member of one of the other guilds, or possibly a lesser noble, and he was fine with that._

_His eye was caught by a figure in a simple volto mask, robes dyed white and red and yellow to match. The mask covered the wearer’s entire face, which he found quite curious at a party designed to draw attention and status. The mask was painted, not gem-studded as was common, and had full red lips and the illusion of makeup about the eye holes. Valanar was not a shy man, and his anonymity made him less so. He excused himself from Vandellor and made his way over, and the volto mask noticed almost immediately._

_“Are you part of a matched set?” came the question, posed by a sweet feminine voice. He supposed that he in his blacks and Vandellor in his whites, with their similar masks and lack of jewels, did look something like a set._

_“It wasn’t planned that way, no,” he said, “merely coincidence.” He snatched a glass of wine from a passing waiter, and another for the woman in the volto mask, but she shook her head._

_“No thank you,” she demurred. “I don’t like to drink when I’m working.”_

_So she was a member of the Tailors’ Guild then, and that made sense. Her robes had been stitched with delicate embroidery and the fabric was high quality, clearly advertising her skills to interested patrons, and Valanar wondered if perhaps she was a court tailor outside of this masquerade. He thought, if all her work were so exquisite, he might have to place an order himself._

_“This is a party,” he urged, an easy grin on his face. “One should be able to take a night off and enjoy oneself.”_

_And she laughed. “If I took the night off for every party, I should never get any work done, nor bring in new clients.”_

_“Ah.” Valanar sipped at one of his two glasses. “You’re a private seamstress then.”_

_“My family owns a shop in the Bazaar,” she replied, “but I do take on custom orders, and I design occasionally.”_

_The Bazaar was one of Anasterian’s innovations. A merger of high street and common sandwiched between the lower classes of the Walk of Elders and the high society of Feth’s Way. There was of course a certain decorum to follow, and merchants kept neat, orderly shops rather than the hastily constructed stalls and carts that dotted the Walk, but the Bazaar was a place for affordable, quality goods, and many merchants catered to the coin purses of all patrons._

_He indicated her dress. Alone, it may not have stood out amongst the sea of extravagance, but paired with the mask… Every feature was designed to compliment it, from the goldenrod stitching about the collar and chest to the pale red of her cuffs and matching gloves. Looking closely, Valanar saw pale silver thread in intricate, dainty patterns along the lines of the white areas, until the entire bottom portion was more embroidery than fabric. It gave a curious sheen to the ensemble when she moved, a soft and altogether pleasing touch to distinguish the otherwise plain hem from the loud collar and mask. “Is this one of your designs? It is spectacular.”_

_It was difficult to tell through the mask, but Valanar thought she might have blushed. “It is,” she said, a note of pride in her voice. She began to discuss the different techniques she had used, to create something to match the volto mask, which had been purchased in a shop and not custom made, and Valanar understood not a word but was nevertheless taken with her passion._

_“What is the name of your family’s shop?” he pressed. “I should like to see it.” He didn’t know if she knew who he was, if she suspected he was not just one of the wealthy nobles but a member of the Bloodsworn family, pledged to the Sunstriders from time immemorial._

_“Illannia,” she told him. “The red shopfront across from the fountain. You can’t miss it.”_

_“Illannia is a beautiful name.”_

_And he knew she was blushing now, saw her eyes_ ﹣ _the only part of her face he could see ﹣ dart away. “Thank you. My father named it after me.”_

_“Then I’m sure you must be beautiful as well, to warrant such a name.”_

_And she laughed then, a little high-pitched as though she were embarrassed. A noblewoman would have preened, despite the fact that such a thing was often only just something one said. “Thank you, sir.”_

_“Illannia!” came a voice, this one belonging to a man in a strangely-colored dragonhawk ensemble. Perhaps an homage to the southern dragonhawk, with their soft grey plumage. “Illannia, come here! Come show off the embroidery on your robes!” To another masked person_ ﹣ _Valanar was sure it was Kraes, a distant relative of the royal family_ ﹣ _he said, “My daughter does beautiful work. Her skill with needle and thread is second to no other.”_

 _“Excuse me,” Illiana said. “I’m afraid I’m being summoned.” Her voice had changed, no longer shy. Back to the confident woman who had talked about the different types of stitching and how best to compliment the volto mask focal point without overwhelming it. Valanar’s eyes followed her as she left (and when the other man spoke, he knew for sure it was Kraes_ ﹣ _the man had a distinct nasally pitch), and made a mental note of what she had told him. A red storefront across the fountain in the Bazaar. Perhaps he would bring his cloth-of-gold trousers to be re-embroidered. The stitching had frayed since he’d last worn them._

* * *

“He told me his name was Val,” Astalor’s mother had said. “Just Val. I didn’t know who he was until after he’d left the shop, and your grandmother asked me, _Do you know who that was?”_ His mother had grown up in Fairbreeze, and had not lived in the city long enough to be acquainted with its elite. “I didn’t even know the name of the Grand Magister at the time!” she’d laugh.

“It was love at first sight,” his father would recall fondly. “The moment I walked into that shop, I knew she was the one.” 

Astalor’s grandfather had not approved. Like many nobles, his father was expected to make a respectable marriage, and though his grandfather may have looked the other way at a discreet affair, he had been steadfastly opposed when his father brought up for the first time that he wished to marry the daughter of a tailor. Even with the renown Valanar’s patronage brought the shop, the fact remained that Illannia was lowborn, and entirely unsuited for the role of Lady Bloodsworn. 

“So what did you do?” Astalor would ask eagerly, and his mother would laugh.

“Your father has always been headstrong,” she had told him. “I think, for the longest time, your grandparents thought I was just someone to pass the time. That isn’t uncommon in court life. They expected he would eventually lose interest and marry a lady.”

But his father didn’t. Long after Anasterian had married Queen Athissa, and Belo’vir had become Grand Magister and therefore given up his status as heir of House Salonar to a younger brother, Valanar was still seeing Illannia. In fact, he’d seen no one else for six hundred years. 

“Your grandparents were getting older,” Astalor’s mother had said, “and so was your father. It was very unusual to be a bachelor at his age.”

* * *

_Valanar stared his parents down. He was tired of being presented with eligible women from all over the kingdom. Even a kaldorei noblewoman had been suggested, and the sister of Queen Athissa!_

_“I wish to marry Illannia,” he said, for possibly the thousandth time. His father sighed, rubbing at his temples as if he had a headache._

_“I’m not going to entertain this any longer, Valanar,” Lord Bloodsworn warned. “You are a Bloodsworn, the_ **_last_ ** _Bloodsworn. You have an obligation to marry and to marry well, to produce heirs to carry on our name and remain by the side of the king. If you do not agree to marry any of the women clamoring for your affections, I will pick one for you. I’ve humored you long enough.”_

_His father was as stubborn as a hawkstrider, a fact that had served him well in his long tenure as King Taldaram’s chief advisor. But Valanar was unshakeable, and he would not be forced._

_“I love her,” he said, and his father snorted._

_“Love is inconsequential. Do you think_ **_Anasterian_ ** _married for love?”_

_And Valanar knew he hadn’t. Knew that although his affections for his queen had grown and might now be called love, Athissa and Anasterian’s marriage had been a political one. Athissa was the niece of the previous Grand Magister, and their marriage had been meant to keep the two families unified as the Grand Magister stepped down and Belo’vir took his place._

_“I love her,” he repeated._

_His father threw up his hands. “Just pick one,” he told his wife. “Your son won’t be happy with any of them_ ﹣ _as if the treaties and political power they would bring mean nothing. Just pick one, and I’ll notify her father.”_

_“You will not!” And Valanar was angry now. His parents weren’t listening. All his life they had allowed him some degree of freedom, but no more. They were treating him as though he were a child. “If I cannot marry Illannia then I will marry no one!”_

_It was his mother who spoke this time. “Don’t be silly,” Lady Bloodsworn chastised. “Any one of these girls would make a fine bride, and you would be lucky to have them. You will marry one of them.”_

_“I will not!” Valanar pounded his fist on the table, and both of them were looking at him now. “I will not,” he repeated, scowling. “If you force me, I will renounce the Bloodsworn name and all its titles. I will renounce my inheritance, my position on the king’s council, and our bloodline will die with me.”_

_His parents were staring at him. “You cannot be serious,” said his father, but his voice shook, with anger or disbelief Valanar didn’t know._

_“I am. Do not test me more than you already have, Father.” He glared at them, could see the wild, panicked thoughts in their heads. His parents were too old now to produce another child, and Valanar had no siblings. His father had two brothers, but both had only girls, married to nobles and no longer bearing the Bloodsworn name. And his grandfather had had no siblings at all. His refusal to marry would mean the end of House Bloodsworn, the breaking of the sacred covenant created by their ancestor and Dath’Remar Sunstrider. It meant a vacuum of power within the government as other, less devoted men fought for his position, men whose intentions were not necessarily good, men whose families had not been blessed by the phoenix god Al'ar. It meant their vast fortune reverting to the state, and the death of everything they had worked towards for the past seven thousand years._

_Valanar had seen no one else for six hundred years. Illannia’s was the only bed he shared, the only quarters he visited. Nobles and Convocation members and even foreign royalty had thrown their daughters and nieces and cousins at him for six hundred years, and he had ignored absolutely all of them. If Anasterian himself, his best friend and king, ordered him to take one of them in marriage, he would refuse._

_“Do you dare risk it?”_

* * *

“And then Father threatened them, and they said yes!” Astalor had exclaimed. He was only a boy, did not understand the severity of his father’s past words.

His mother would pat his head, press a kiss to his forehead. “They waited, as they always had,” she would correct gently. “But your father won. He was twenty-four hundred years old, and stubborn as a hawkstrider. This was important to him, and eventually they understood that.” 

And Astalor, being older now, could understand his grandparents’ reservations. His mother was lowborn, and if her family had been the sort of courtly gold diggers his grandparents feared them to be, they would merely use his father’s status and the Bloodsworn name to make a name for themselves by riding his coattails, to use him as his father feared those eligible noblewomen would. But his mother’s parents were good people. The shop “Illannia” still stood in the Bazaar, and while his mother no longer ran it herself, she also did not use the Bloodsworn name to boost its credibility. It used no Bloodsworn money, paying its rent and employees with the coin it made on its own, and aside from the surges of popularity it enjoyed when his parents had married, did very well on the quality of its work alone. Although his mother’s parents lived in a posh apartment paid for by his father, they had not asked for it, and accepted only because it had been a gift, and refusing gifts was rude. 

His father had always been adamant that he would not force Astalor into an arranged marriage. That if Astalor asked, he would find a suitable girl for him, but not before. “Marrying your mother was the first thing I truly did for myself,” he would say, “and it has remained the best decision I have ever made.” Though he did not always show it, being of the closed, somewhat gruff character as his peers, Astalor knew his father loved his mother very much, and when she died after a long illness that had also claimed Queen Athissa, he did not entertain the thought of remarrying. 

“The light has gone out of my life,” his father told him mournfully. “I shall never again love anyone as I loved your mother.” His father had cut his hair short after her death, and until his own dying day dressed in mourning white. 

* * *

Astalor Bloodsworn had always wanted a love story like that of his parents’. A story truly worthy of the old epics he had once devoured as a child. And while he had never, truly, been able to comprehend the sacrifice his father had been willing to make, never able to really understand the depth of the love they possessed for one another, Astalor did know something. He knew the way his father looked at his mother, the way his face lit up when she walked in a room. He knew the way his father allowed only his mother to embroider his clothes, the way he trusted no one else with such delicate work. He knew the way his father let his mother oversee her family’s shop, not because they needed the coin or as some silly wives’ hobby, but because it was important to her, and he respected that. He knew, as he watched his father break beside his mother’s deathbed, as his father crumpled in on himself and the sobs wracked his body, that his father _loved_ his mother, and it was his greatest wish to find someone who inspired in him such devotion and intensity. 

Of course, when it happened, he didn’t recognize the gift he had been given until many, many years later.

“Are you bleeding or broken?” 

The voice came from the corner of the room commandeered in the office of the Sunsail Anchorage harbormaster. Kael had swept them to Astalor’s country home, Aubade Hall, on the outskirts of the town for a holiday. Neither Astalor nor his father came here very often anymore, not since the death of his mother, but Kael had insisted they holiday at _Sunsail,_ of all places, and Astalor had never been very good at standing up to Kael. 

“Pardon?” The brusque, direct question shouldn’t have surprised him ﹣ he knew that Rommath’s sister healed sailors, had in fact earlier broken up a fight between two of them, now lying unconscious on stiff cots not four paces away. But few people spoke to him like that, and he wasn’t quite sure what to say. 

“Homesick,” said Rommath, and the owner of the voice started. The healer stopped sorting bandage linen, and her whole body froze. As if in slow motion, she turned her head, and with a surprised shout crossed the room in four long strides and _threw_ herself into Rommath so hard she nearly knocked them both down. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly when they’d parted, and Rommath put on his straightest face and deadpanned, “I am being held against my will by a duo of kidnappers. Here, this is one of them now ﹣ Lord Astalor Bloodsworn.” Astalor flushed a little at the introduction. Kael might like to throw around his princely title, but Astalor felt it ostentatious (and _dangerous,_ in this dingy little port town) to announce his. He certainly didn’t act like a lord, or even feel like one most days. 

“My father would pay a handsome sum for my brother’s safe return,” Rommath’s sister told him. “But I would pay you more. He hasn’t deigned to see me for _five hundred_ years.” 

He found himself relaxing under her kind, impish gaze. “Rommath hardly makes time for most people,” he said diplomatically. 

“Yes I do!”

“I am his _sister,”_ the girl insisted. And she glared at her brother. “You should always make time for me.” 

And Astalor had left them in the harbormaster’s office sometime after, because that was the entire reason Kael had insisted on this vacation ﹣ for Rommath to see his sister after the failing of his archmage exams. (And Astalor still could not believe Rommath had _failed._ The man studied harder than any of them.) Had he known then what he knew now, he would not have returned to Aubade Hall and Kael, or sat through a long and frankly concerning story of cousin Lor’themar’s latest skirmish with murlocs. If he had known at the time what he knew now, he would have stayed in the dingy little office, and listened with rapt attention as his friend and his sister caught up, and perhaps he would have even shoved Rommath aside and jumped into the conversation himself. 

* * *

The Scourge brought many changes to Quel’Thalas. Anasterian was dead, and with him Kael’s desperation to hide from his destiny. He returned to Silvermoon, and Astalor went with him. 

Astalor didn’t like blood, and after finding the body of his mother when he was a child, he didn’t much like the sight of dead bodies either. He found he was a much better help in the background, dispatching runners to the various Bloodsworn properties and ordering them opened to all who needed shelter or food or medical attention, consulting with the Farstriders and procuring necessities. More than once, he found himself pushing an exhausted Kael into a cot to sleep, or brewing yet another cup of coffee for Rommath who refused to. He got quite good at making coffee, in the aftermath of the Scourge. He found his father, badly injured but alive, counted himself luckier than most.

Falconwing Square was overrun several times by the undead, and with his father’s permission offered their lavish city home in the Court of the Sun as a hospital. His father was too weak to be moved to any of the infirm stations, and the healers stretched too thin to make the long, perilous walk across the city, and the safety of the townhome guaranteed some of their more critical patients would not be disturbed should the undead break through the city gates again. When Telonicus and his wife turned up, and the priest Galell, both were quickly ushered to the Court of the Sun and past the guards of the Bloodsworn home.

Rommath’s sister, of course, didn’t confine herself to Astalor’s city apartments as Rommath had wanted. She parked herself as close to the Scourge as she dared, oftentimes the first ﹣ and sometimes only ﹣ healer the devastated and homeless saw. When Rommath was too busy, or when Astalor could convince him to close his eyes for a few minutes and _rest,_ Astalor would sometimes steel his nerve and make the trip (so much longer now than it had been, with the undead rampant and the Farstriders still trying to regain control) to Falconwing Square, to the infirmary set up in the only building that still boasted a roof, just to soothe his friend’s nerves. He often found the girl ﹣ Auriel ﹣ swamped with patients, with high fevers and infections and traumatized sobbing, and watching her made him dizzy. She drank the coffee he brought, and every so often he could convince her to eat, even if it was only a conjured mana bun shoved hastily into her mouth in between patients. Later, he thought that that was when he knew. Like when his father first saw his mother after stepping into the tailor’s shop, as he watched Auriel rush from elf to elf, her robes stained with others' blood and her hair askew, administering sleeping potions and slathering terrible wounds with salves, he fell in love with her.

* * *

They’d lost another recruit. Right on the heels of Lady Vor’na’s descent into Wretchedness came the death of Mindel Sunspeaker, torn limb from limb by the sick, Wretched elves starving for the mana he possessed. They’d only just figured out the cause of this terrible wasting sickness, and Mindel had done much to help those affected by it. Now he was gone. 

Auriel was sobbing, great ugly tears in what was left of the Chapel. It hadn’t been a priority to rebuild it, not yet, but that didn’t stop the pious and the lost from seeking solace there. 

He hadn’t known what to say then. Hadn’t known how he could comfort her. Rommath would have known, but Rommath wasn’t there. Rommath was with Kael in Outland, and Astalor was here doing Rommath’s job and his own, and now looking after his sister as well. He hadn’t thought Auriel had needed looking after. 

He learned later that Auriel had lost someone else, a boy she’d known when she was a priestess at Sunsail. That the Sunwell’s collapse had only exacerbated the boy's already poor condition, that his wasting away to Wretchedness was not something she could stop. Vor’na, given to him by Rommath to facilitate his temporary appointment as Grand Magister, had hit him hard, but this boy had destroyed Auriel. She cried as Astalor had the day his father died, finally succumbing the terrible injuries he’d sustained from the Scourge. 

And while Astalor had struggled in the wake of his father’s death, had cried more than he cared to remember and tried hard not to break, the loss of Mindel and the boy from Sunsail did not break Auriel. In that moment it seemed it had, but as Astalor held her, felt the warmth of her spread to his own skin and tingle with Light, she quieted, and as she quieted she grew stronger. “It’s okay to feel like this,” he told her, even though nothing felt okay at all. 

And when he finally broke down, weeks later, the loss of his father and the stress of not knowing about Rommath and Kael, the frustration of outfitting the Blood Knight Order and the mysterious, gruesome deaths of powerful mages finally, finally breaking through the thin illusion of _fine_ he’d crafted for himself, Auriel held him as he’d held her, and repeated his words back to him. “It’s okay,” she murmured, a bastion of calm in the storm that was life. “It’s okay to feel like this.” 

And when he finally kissed her, soft and sweet, after months of struggling with feelings his brain never knew his heart had and the juxtaposition of them against the horrors of the Scourge, when he’d offered to walk her to the humble quarters she shared with several other of her sisters in the Light, his heart thudding as he asked for permission ﹣ when he finally kissed her, he at once felt _okay,_ for perhaps the first time since Kael had stormed into his flat in Dalaran screaming about the hordes of the undead. It was _okay_ to feel as he did ﹣ confused and scared and angry, sad and stressed and so, so in love with this woman who showed him, every single day, how to turn those feelings into something _good._ How to calm down enough to think, to find solutions to questions no one had ever asked, to speak up in front of the groups of people he led, who trusted him and looked to him for strength. 

He felt, as he kissed her, the warm pull of the Light, and beyond that, felt her crash against him, finally able to _breathe,_ to let go of all her worries and anger and burdens. As he could confide in Auriel, so could she confide in him, lose herself in his company the way he did in hers. Auriel expected nothing from him, as so many others did, and he expected nothing from her. They gravitated towards each other, and together were able to face the things that alone tore them up inside. 

As Astalor’s lips left hers, as they stared, breathless and giddy, into each other’s eyes, he thought he finally understood what his parents had, and why his father had been willing to do anything to keep it safe.

* * *

When Liadrin delivered the terrible news, for one brief moment Astalor felt a powerful bond with his father. Understood then the grief that had overtaken him, how he’d doubled over in pain and sobbed over his wife’s body, clutching her lifeless hand for all it was worth as though he could yank her back from the Shadowlands by the strength of his love alone. For one small, fleeting moment, Astalor understood his father more clearly than he ever had ﹣ the way he’d pulled away and closed off, the pained expression when his father looked at him. Astalor looked very like his mother, and he had never understood the almost cold way his father regarded him after her death. In that one moment, he understood it all. 

And then he broke. What was it his father had said, when he’d finally been able to speak?

“ _The light has gone out of my life.”_

Astalor understood now. The light had gone out of his too. 

* * *

“Will you never remarry?” Rommath asked. 

And the question shocked him. Not its brusqueness ﹣ that was just how Rommath talked. Not even the implication, _will you ever get over my sister?_ No, the truly shocking part, Astalor decided, was the idea that anyone, _anyone_ in this world, could have made him feel as Auriel had. The suggestion that such a person even existed. Astalor believed a person only had one soulmate in this life, and he had found his. The idea of marrying another, of _committing_ to another when he had already promised himself body and soul to Auriel, was the shock. 

“No.” He wasn’t angry at the question. Rommath hadn’t grown up as he had, with parents who were soulmates. Rommath probably didn’t believe in soulmates at all.

“If I’m the concern,” his friend said quickly, “don’t hold yourself back. I want you to be _happy,_ Astalor.” 

Astalor shook his head. “If there is anything Auriel has taught me, it is to do things for myself. Your approval is not a concern.”

Long ago, Astalor had never done anything his friends disapproved of. He partied with Kael, because Kael didn’t like people who didn’t like his brand of fun; and he stayed out of arguments, because taking one side meant upsetting the other. He didn’t celebrate Winter Veil, because it had been his mother’s favorite holiday and it made his father sad. The Astalor from long ago would not have remarried for fear of offending his late wife’s brother. 

_“You can’t live your life afraid of what others think,”_ Auriel had told him once, after noticing his clammed up state.

_“Even you?” He meant it in jest. Who wouldn’t care what their wife thought?_

_“Even me,” she said firmly. “You need to tell people what_ _you_ _think, without worrying how they’ll react. If it upsets them, you can find out why, but you shouldn’t hold back because it_ **_might_ ** _upset them.”_

_And he stared at her then. Who thought like that? “You and Rommath really are the same person,” he muttered. And she laughed._

_“So.” He hesitated. Kael had taught him that people often said things they do not mean. “May I tell you something?”_

_“Anything.” She brought her hands to his face and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “You can always tell me anything.”_

_“I don’t like blackroot tea.”_

_“What?” A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She hadn't been expecting that._

_“Blackroot tea,” he repeated. “I hate it. I think it’s undrinkable. I don’t know why you like it.”_

_And she laughed again, but she wasn’t laughing at him. “Then why do you drink it?”_

_“Because you make it!”_

_“Astalor!” She tried to stifle her giggles, not wanting him to think she was mocking him. Pressed her forehead to his. “You don’t even like it with sugar?”_

_“Not with a pound of sugar,” he said honestly. Blackroot tea came from the south, and was one of the few salvageable foodstuffs from the Scourge. A similar sort grew in Arathi, and Rommath and Auriel themselves probably justified its import. “Or milk,” he added, before she could ask. It was bitter, and in his opinion nothing could make it palatable._

_“Then I won’t make it for you,” she promised. “I’ll make you something else.”_

_“You’re not mad?”_

_She sighed, butted his head playfully with hers. “Of course not. You’re allowed to have your own likes and dislikes, Astalor. You don’t always have to do what everyone else is doing.”_

_And to prove her point, she brewed him a new cup with the last of the sweet hazel, and drank his old one so it wouldn’t go to waste._

“If I met a woman who made me feel as Auriel did,” Astalor said, eyes glassy, “I would marry her without your say-so.” He didn’t think he would ever find such a woman. In all lifetimes and across all worlds, there would only ever be her. 

Rommath didn’t understand. To him, the sort of thing Astalor was suggesting was suffering and loneliness, but Astalor didn’t feel that way. To have never met Auriel at all ﹣ _that_ would be suffering. To have never felt the Light radiating from her, to never have been able to pull her close in the middle of the night, to see her smile or hear the soft intonation when she said his name ﹣ that would be loneliness. He missed her, and sometimes still he felt angry that she had been taken from him, cruelly so soon, but those feelings would not bring her back; and he could not ever give himself to another when he knew they were not his soulmate, when he knew he would never, could never love them the way they deserved. The way he’d loved Auriel. 

“I would give anything in this world for even one more day with her. But I know I will see her when I finally pass into the Shadowlands, and it’s not a burden to wait. One day we will be together again.”

Rommath looked at him thoughtfully. “You really believe that?” he asked, and Astalor had always found it amusing, how Rommath could be simultaneously so devout and yet not believe at all. 

“Yes.” He believed his parents had been reunited in their deaths, and that he and Auriel would be as well. What were the Shadowlands if not a place for souls to live in eternity? He rubbed his thumb around the thin band of Auriel’s wedding ring, a gesture that brought him comfort and kept her close. “I will see her again, and never again will we be parted.”

Once, his faith had been shaken. After the Scourge, he had lost even an intellectual interest in the Light. How could something so pure and good have allowed the evils of the Scourge to happen? But Auriel never had. Through her, he still felt its warmth, still felt all of its promised hope and goodness. Perhaps the Light was not an almighty protector as he had always been taught. Perhaps it was merely a shelter for the lost, giving them strength until they could stand on their own. Auriel had certainly done that for him. The man he had been could never have borne the burdens he had. Auriel had done that for him. Auriel had given him the strength to stand tall after her death, to remain open and kind and to _feel._

He ran his thumb along the ring hanging from his neck, and felt within it all the love and goodness and strength she had left behind. For him. 

* * *

_He was in a strange room. A room of unsaturated blues and greys, eerily quiet except for the gentle, unearthly sound of wind. Or whispers. It did not hurt to open his eyes, but it took him much longer than he expected. As though he were moving underwater._

_And then he saw her._

_“Auriel…”_

_She sat at his bedside, cloaked in the same curious desaturation. Her eyes shone white with Light_ ﹣ _hadn’t they once been green? Or was it blue?_ ﹣ _and a soft hidden breeze ruffled her hair._

_“Hello Astalor.” And oh, it was good to hear her voice. She sounded just like he remembered._

_“Where_ ﹣ _how_ ﹣ _?” He couldn’t move, couldn’t reach for her, and somehow that didn't panic him as maybe it should have._

_She smiled at him, kind and gentle as she’d been in life. “This is the space between worlds,” she told him._

_It took him a moment to understand. To remember. “I died.” He wasn’t shocked, or even upset._

_“You did.”_

_“Why are you here?” He wished he could sit up. Wished he could hold her again._

_Auriel gestured behind her to the room’s only feature, a nondescript doorway, Light filtering in through the cracks at its sides. “I help people let go. I help them move on." As she spoke, he thought he saw the faint shimmer of wings at her back, like the depictions of spirit healers and angels in books of the Light._

_She was strangely translucent, and if he squinted, he thought he could see straight through her. From what he could see of his own body, he was still very solid._

_“You waited for me.”_

_“I did.” She placed her hand over his, but he felt no pressure in the touch. Only Light. “I would wait a thousand lifetimes for you.”_

_Astalor had never given much thought to what happened after death. The only ones who really knew, probably, were the Forsaken, and if they remembered at all they felt no inclination to share. He wondered, perhaps, if Auriel had taken residence at this_ ﹣ _what had she called it? the space between worlds?_ ﹣ _place for him. To catch his soul on the way to the Shadowlands, to be sure she found him again._

_“I’ve missed you,” he breathed._

_She smiled. “And I you, dalah’arifal.” He didn’t know if she could cry, if whatever form she had now possessed the ability, but he thought she might start. “Are you ready to move on?”_

_How could she even ask that? Astalor didn’t know what would happen if he said no, but he didn’t need to. He had lived a good life, and his death was neither sad nor a surprise. His last conscious thought, he remembered, had been a fervent prayer, that Auriel would be there at the end of it all._

_“Yes.”_

_And suddenly the world shifted, and he was no longer lying down but sitting up, and then standing, Auriel before him and her hand in his and so_ **_warm_ ** _and_ **_real_ ** _. He looked over his shoulder to see his old body, the person he had been, solid and silent on the bed, and he was not sad, nor scared of what was to come._

_“I’ve missed you,” he said again, reaching forward to tuck a strand of silky hair behind her ear. She leaned into him, smiling serenely. Wrapped her arms around him._

_“Let’s go,” she said softly, indicating the door which no longer seemed so far away._

_“How long will you stay with me?” Rommath had told him once, of a strange dream he’d had when he’d been injured in Deatholme. Of Auriel and Kael and a quiet, grey room. They had left him, he’d said, could not go where he went. He did not know if this was the same thing._

_Auriel kissed him then, soft and loving and gentle. She breathed the words against his lips._

_“Forever.”_

_And then she turned, and holding his hand, led him into the Light._


End file.
